The Path to Love

How can I love my partner more fully? How can I become more lovable and desirable to my partner? How can we recreate the loving, passionate feeling we had that made us want to be together?

All that sounds good, but does it represent ‘real’ life for real people.

“Real life” for couples of today encompasses working late, children with needs, TV, too many glasses of wine, quick dinners, and falling into bed at the end of the evening too tired to connect in a fulfilling way. It can also be about sickness, aging and more. Sometimes when partners must hurriedly pass each other on the life path, they make faulty assumptions that their partner doesn’t care, doesn’t feel desire, or is removed and distant for any number of reasons. It’s easy to wrongly fill in the blanks and lose or misplace that quality connection that brought partners together.

Rekindle Passion with Couple’s or Sex Therapy

When a couple engages in Couple’s or Sex Therapy, they find that there is a way to bring their energies together to allow the warmth, caring and desire to reemerge.

Is there a way to become present in your own body so that when you look at your partner, when you touch them in passing, when you put your hands on their neck or shoulders to give a brief massage, that the electricity which has diminished in voltage can be re-ignited?

Is there a way to take the energy of exhaustion and withdrawal and transform it to a magnetic force of attraction. Is there a way to freshen up, take some breaths, do some stretching, and come to your lover with a renewal of love, understanding and aliveness?

Touch as a Sex Therapy Tool

We humans need touch; we thrive on it; it anchors us in our relationships and makes us feel connected. Touch stimulates our emotional, mental and spiritual selves and calms our nervous system, increases our brain wave activity and makes us more alert, receptive and welcoming to each other’s energy.

I would like you to touch me as if your hand were a feather, lightly caressing the edge of my being.

I would like you to touch me as if you were erasing the outer me, allowing me to reveal my inner self to you. I would like you to touch me as if your hands were sponges, soaking up the essence of my being.

‒Rhonda Levand

Our skin is the largest organ of our body and, when touched, stimulates the brain and central and peripheral nerve systems of our body which enhances our energy and vitality.

Through touch, multiple neuronal messages are transmitted to our brains stimulating the production of hormones (chemical and emotional energy) that provide physical and emotional good feelings.

When I work with a couple in Couple’s or Sex Therapy, I often ask them to give each other hand and/or face massages. You might think, ‘What’s the big deal?’ But the simple act of giving or receiving a hand massage tells us a story.

I ask each partner to first rub their own hands together enough to feel the energy and aliveness between the palms which are held several inches apart. The energy which is felt is called Prana or Chi by ancient and current practices of Yoga or Chi Gung. Once a participant feels their own prana energy, they are more able to detect that energy in their partner’s body.

When giving or receiving the hand massage, questions arise such as:

How much pressure feels good for my partner?

Do they like stroking, tapping, petting, pressure, lightness?

Do they like their fingers pulled, broad strokes on their palms, their wrists caressed or held, or their arms stroked?

Can one person tell their partner what they would enjoy and what makes them feel uncomfortable?

Is the giving partner able to hear the requests from their partner without feeling as if they’ve failed or don’t know how to touch?

Do the partners have signals to indicate whether the timing of the interchange works for both?

Does each partner have a way to indicate pleasure and appreciation?

Often, this exercise alone is a powerful prelude to successful lovemaking. If this couple can stay present, give and receive easily and generously, allow the partner to ask for what they need and want and continue to grow with what is learned about each other’s body, heart and mind, this can be an entrée into good love-making.

These qualities of open communication, the recognition that we don’t know enough about our partner’s body and we need to ask for feedback and suggestion without assuming it means we are not doing it right, this is a beginning to rich, deep and sexy/erotic sexuality.

Questions that Help Unlock Barriers to Great Sex

What are your partner’s fantasies? How might they excite you in a sexy manner? What risks are you willing to take? What have you desired sexually but been unable to ask for? What can you do as a couple to increase your pleasure? What do you do to enhance the sexiness of your relationship? Might you initiate something new without a guarantee of your partner’s easy acceptance? Can you talk openly about these issues and more?

Right now, notice your body as you read this article. Do you feel energy, aliveness, curiosity? Do you find yourself wondering about your partner and his or her ideas and notions of the questions posed? Do you feel like you and your partner could grow closer, perhaps develop more pleasure, maybe have more fun together?

Consider the possibility that you and your partner can become more intimate. Consider that with some Couple’s or Sex therapy focused on intimacy, sexuality, communication and understanding, so much is possible for two people who want to build that connection and become more supportive and more loving.